Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

eleemosynary (adj) (1620): of, or relating to, or supported by charity. (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

"The effort on behalf of the immigrants is not of course purely eleemosynary. Israel needs these people to fill the vessel of the state." (p. 139, Practicing History by Barbara Tuchman)

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.

luces - plural (according to misc. online sources) of lux.
lux (n.) a unit of illumination equal to the direct illumination on a suface that is everywhere one meter from a uniform point source of one candle intensity or equal to one lumen per square meter
"Families were deep waters indeed, and I still had much to learn about what luces lurked beneath the surface of my own." (p. 300)

Words are from The Dead in their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.

lough (n) 1 : chiefly Irish: Lake. 2: chiefly Irish: a bay or inlet of the sea.
"The cottage sat at the edge of the lough. She could hear the wind and rain whipping across the expanse of open water: it hit the trees and muscled its way into the grass." (p. 3)


bollard (n) 1. a post of metal or wood on a wharf around which to fasten mooring lines. 2: chiefly British: any of a series of short posts set at intervals to delimit an area (as a traffic island) or to exclude vehicular traffic. "The rope tightened hard against the bollard. The water slapped against Kingstown Pier." (p. 40)

Words are from TransAtlantic by Colum McCann. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.

inchoate (adj) being only partly in existance or operation: esp: imperfectly formed or formulated."What accounts for this new breed of creative man? The fickle mistress of fashion, certainly. But I would also suggest--from my own close observation--that this inchoate man is also confused and adrift in a world where the generational gap is wider than ever." (p. 45)

Word is from Truth in Advertising by John Kenney. Definition is from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

coruscation (n) 1 : glitter, sparkle 2: a flash of wit.
"Her eyes dwelt affectionately on Green Gables, peering through its network of trees and reflecting the sun;ight back from its windows in several little coruscations of glory." (p. 213)

Words are from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Review: Endangered Phrases

Endangered Phrases: Intriguing Idioms Dangerously Close to Extinction
by Steven D. Price

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Most of these phrases were familiar to me, which I found disappointing. There were a number of missing words in the descriptions (poor proof reading!) which I found annoying and a few of the phrases that were included had no background story, the author just said "we don't know where this came from."

The main thing that makes me glad I read this is that it did include an explanation of a phrase I have heard my whole life and didn't know the origin of. Frick and Frack was a Swiss comedy ice skating duo who appeared in the original Ice Follies in the 1930s. The phrase came to be applied to any pair of jokesters, especially those that looked like each other. My Mom often used this phrase to refer to my sister and I when we were kids, I can't imagine why.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

myrmidon (n) 1 : cap : a member of a legendary Thessalian people who accompnied their king Achilles in the Trojan War. 2: a loyal follower; esp. : a subordinate who executes orders unquestioningly or unscrupulously.
"A gentleman in a mackintosh will be there pretending to botanize in the iron railings. One of my myrmidons." (p. 123)




megrim (n) 1: (a) a migraine; (b) vertigo, dizziness. 2 (a) fancy, whim; (b) pl : low spirits.
"It has helped to establish evidence which I needed, said Alleyn firmly. I cannot see that anything else is of consequence. I am unable to feel any sympathy with the incalculable megrims of the layman." (p.202)

Words are from A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

vig (n) shortening of vigorish (dating back to 1968)
vigorish (n) 1 : a charge taken (as by a bookie or a gambling house) on bets; also, the degree of such a charge (a ~ of 5 percent) 2: interest paid to a moneylender.
"And stopped paying the vig, which was twelve grand a week." (p. 301)

Word is from Dog on It by Spenser Quinn. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.
Strictly speaking, these aren't from my reading this week, but there were quite a few good words I looked up from this novel, so I am still working on sharing them.

vademecum (n) 1 : a book for ready reference : manual. 2: something regularly carried about by a person. "He peered dubiously at the depression in the bedclothes, and measured it a second time with the gentleman-scout's vademecum."  (p. 41)

emollient (adj) 1. making soft or supple; also soothing esp. to the skin or mucous membrane. 2: making less intense or harsh; mollifying. "When this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, forswear the police news, and take to an emollient diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice." (p. 68) I knew this word in the context of hand lotion, but thought there might be more meanings. Charles Garvice was a popular author of the time who wrote romances.

Words are from Whose Body? by Dorthy L. Sayers. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

houri (n) 1 : one of the beautiful maidens that in Muslim belief live with the blessed in paradise. 2: a voluptuously beautiful young woman. "Its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris." (p. 13)

quiddity (n) 1. a: a trifling point : quibble. b: crotchet, eccentricity. 2: whatever makes something to be of the type that it is : essence. "Well, I'm glad the little man has so much of an alibi, said Lord Peter, though if you're only gluing your faith to cadaveric lividity, rigidity, and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared to have some sceptical beast of a prosecuting counsel walk slap-bang through the medical evidence." (p. 19) Odd that this word means both essence and trifle--I think Sayers means both here.



Words are from Whose Body? by Dorthy L. Sayers. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

koan (n) a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment. "We return from sleep with ... the answer to some private koan or scientific question." (p. 238)
  
amanuensis (n) one employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscript. "It is easy to disparage that ordinary self, the one who listens, the one who pays attention, when so much is given by the dream. Still, as Stevenson pointed out, that humdrum self is an excellent editor and amanuensis, and a more-then-competent secretary." (p. 249)

Words are from World Enough and Time by Christian McEwen. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading. 

thrall (n) 1. (a) a servant slave : bondman : also serf (b) a person in moral or mental servitude. 2. (a) the state of a thrall: slavery (b) a state of complete absorption.
"There is nothing in the world --in this world or any other--that would give her ladyship greater pain than to find herself in thrall to another magician."(p. 560)

inimical (adj) 1. being adverse often by reason of hostility or malevolence. 2. (a) having the disposition of an enemy: hostile (b) reflecting or indicating hostility; unfriendly. "Today Spitalfields is inhabited by the low and the poor and is much plagued with small boys, thieves and other persons inimicable to the peace of the citizens." (p. 580)
"Inimicable" wasn't in my dictionary, but I think it is intended here as a variation of the "unfriendly" meaning of inimical.  

Words are from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading. 

lacunae (n., pl.) 1: a blank space or missing part; gap. 2: a small cavity, pit, or discontinuity in an anatomical structure. "Sadly there are many lacunae in our knowledge, but I have suggested ways in which we might restore what has been lost." (p. 437)


aureate (adj) 1: of a golden color or brilliance. 2: marked by a grandiloquent and rhetorical style. "In every spell they recorded, in every word they wrote, they were trying to re-create the glorious magic of their predecessors (those we term the Golden Age or Aureate magicians." (p. 444) 

argentine (adj) silver, silvery."Martin Pale and the argentine magicians never intended to lay the foundations of English Magic." (p. 444) 

Words are from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

incipit (n) the first part; beginning; specifically the opening words of a text of a medieval manuscript or early printed book.

quotidian (adj) 1: occuring every day; 2: belonging to each day, everyday; commonplace, ordinary. "The point is that even if one's daily life may appear quotidian, Wallace says, one can still wage a silent and extraordinary war." (p. 32)

Thanatos (n) an instinctual desire for death that in Freudian theory is one of two primal instincts. "... seeking to contain the spread of a thanatotic contagion..." (p. 33)

metonymy (n) a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated. "...the city had apppeared before him as metonymy for his entire adult future: a place of human industry and sophistication waiting to receive him." (p. 37)


Words are from The Storm at the Door by Stefan Merrill Block. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.

coppice (n) 1:  a thicket, grove, or growth of small trees, 2: forest originating mainly from shoots or root suckers rather than seed.
  
spinney (n) a small wood with undergrowth.

holt (n) a small woods; copse.

Words are from World Enough and Time by Christian McEwen. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.